


Get it out from the root

by BlueGeranium



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Revelations, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-10-27 03:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueGeranium/pseuds/BlueGeranium
Summary: If you're gonna go changing things anyway, better do it from when it truly started.Or well... from as close to that as you can get.(Yes. It is another time-travel fic. Hopefully at least somewhat unique though)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not going to be a very long or intricate fic, just enough to cover the basics and give some satisfying scenes.  
> I'm not completely decided on it yet, but KakaNaru likely won't be much more than implied. It will definitely be there though.

When Obito burst out into the clearing that Guruguru had been directing him towards, the first thing he heard through the panicked hammering of his own heart in his chest was the dying chirps of a Chidori.

Kakashi stood in the middle of the field, his arm clean through someone's chest.

The Kiri shinobi seemed to be still alive for half a second more, his expression one of terror, but the life faded from his eyes before Kakashi even managed to fully rip his hand back out of the mangled body. The corpse hit the ground with a dull thud, and Obito would have rejoiced had Kakashi then not swayed on his feet and followed suit, collapsing right on top of his victim.

Multiple Kiri shinobi were still all around. For now, they were still frozen after witnessing one of their own meet such a gruesome end at the hands of what looked like a child, but it was only a question of seconds before they recovered and sought revenge against the now defenseless young Konoha jounin.

And... Rin. Just where exactly was Rin?

Obito tensed his body, about to burst out of his cover to try and protect his (former?) teammate when two unexpected things happened at once.

Another figure flashed into the clearing. Clad in a non-descriptive traveling cloak and donning what could only be a Konoha ANBU mask, the person appeared right next to Kakashi's small prone form and fell into an obviously defensive stance.

In the meantime, Obito couldn't even sigh in relief because the ground lit up under his feet for a mere moment in a weird pattern of light and left him completely unable to move.

Obito instinctively tried to scream, but his vocal chords absolutely refused to vibrate. He wasn’t even able to move his gaze and could only helplessly observe as the mysterious figure deflected a few weapons that were sent flying its way, and the area exploded with the sounds of renewed fighting immediately after. The Kiri shinobi charged at Kakashi's savior but were held back easily by moves that were too fast for even Obito's active sharingan to follow properly.

Literally the only things he could do, Obito realized as he tried not to panic, were thinking and breathing.

"I'm sorry about this," a soft, apologetic voice suddenly came from so close behind him that he could still clearly hear it even over the raging battle just a few meters in front of him, "But I'm afraid this is unavoidable until we can figure out how to deal with your... host without hurting you."

An almost imperceptibly silent shuffling noise was Obito's only warning before his field of vision was filled by a face or, rather, another Konoha ANBU mask. It seemed to depict some sort of a canine animal, but Obito was unable to grasp anything more specific. His eye hurt.

"The seal I used on you makes it so that anyone within its area of effect becomes completely incapable of movement. Other than absolutely vital processes in your body, there is absolutely nothing you can do. Including blinking," the man explained openly in that same gentle, slightly muffled by the mask voice. Although he obviously could not see the person's expression, for some reason Obito got the impression that the man smiled at him then, "For your own comfort, I will close your eye before it gets too dry. I've been informed you're quite... sensitive about that."

Oh right, that would explain why his eye was hurting, Obito thought a bit inanely as his field of vision slowly was covered with darkness. The masked man had lifted his hand and carefully closed his eye with his fingers.

Just like one would do to someone who had _died_ with their eyes open.

Someone _dead_.

Like that Kiri shinobi who just took Kakashi's arm through his chest.

Like Obito, before he was woken to live again.

Obito distantly recognized that he should be scared. He did not know what had become of his teammates, although his ears informed him that at least the battle seemed to be coming to an end. He was at a complete mercy of a stranger, even if it was supposedly a Konoha ANBU. But for an unknown reason, even in this situation, he was bizarrely calm.

"Kakashi will be fine, other than suffering from chakra depletion. The enemy shinobi were just defeated and pose him no threat," the man then told him with complete confidence, "My friend with a few clones of mine made sure to stop Rin before she could do something very rash. She has now been removed from danger, and although she has fainted from stress and strain, she will recover from that without any problems. You do not need to worry about your team. Your jounin sensei should be on his way soon as well, although it will take him a few more hours. I promise you, everything will be alright. You are all safe, Obito."

Again, some reason compelled Obito to believe the comforting words and he felt relief flood into him over that strange earlier calmness.

A sound of footsteps was getting close to them then, and just a few seconds later, Obito could hear a new voice. Slightly muffled by a mask as well, it was steady, aloof and had a touch of something familiar to it.

"They've been taken care of," the other stranger said once he stood right next to them, "And I've got… the brat. I don’t know if it’s the best idea, but I left most of the Kiri shinobi alive, since they've been manipulated as well, so we better move away from here before they start waking up."

"Good. My clone will also be here with the girl in a moment," Obito's captor replied, before his tone changed to a slightly chastising one, "Would it hurt you to carry him a little more gently?"

"Maa, I'm sure he can take it," came the unconcerned, drawled reply, and what sounded suspiciously like a small body being unceremoniously jostled.

"He'll already be sore from the chakra exhaustion, no need to make him even more miserable by having him flung over your shoulder so carelessly while we travel. Actually, you know what," the man was clearly just exasperated by now, "Just give him to me. I'm sure you'll be more careful with our other guest here. Speaking of which..."

Obito could feel the man stepping even closer to him then.

"I'm sorry about this again, Obito, but I will have to knock you out now."

And those somewhat sheepish words were the last thing Obito heard before he felt a swift jab and darkness claimed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there are slight inconsistencies with the canon in this, but hopefully small enough to be mostly unnoticable.  
> (I struggled so hard, because as far as I know, Obito would have no way of knowing the name of Chidori at this point of time, so it shouldn't have been mentioned from his POV. But that first line had been exactly that in my head from the moment this plot bunny first showed up in there, so I just had to leave it in)


	2. Chapter 2

“What happened?”

Kakashi woke with his body aching all over with a numb, hollow emptiness, and he was already familiar enough with the sensation to recognize it as chakra depletion immediately after waking, no matter how disoriented he otherwise felt.

It was quite a bit worse than he had ever experienced before, too.

“Sorry, I was startled myself. A wave of memories just flooded back in.”

And he was not sure how he got here. Or where _here_ even was. And the voices he was hearing were definitely unfamiliar. He was certainly in no hurry to alert them to the fact that he had woken.

“And?”

Through incredibly minute, strategical twitches of some very uncooperative muscles, Kakashi took stock of his situation.

“As we feared, Black Zetsu had rushed into taking action as soon as he realized something went awry.”

He was not surprised to find he had been divested of all his weapons. The _unexpected_ thing was that he felt no restrains on him. Even his ( _Obito’_ s) Sharingan was left uncovered. Not among enemies then? He could feel no chakra suppressants either, not that he currently had much chakra to suppress anyway.

“They seem to be fumbling around a bit without direction now that he has been dealt with, but there’s still going to be a lot of rounding up to do.”

But how did he get this way? His memories were hazy. Even when he concentrated, all he could recall were distorted images of running through the tree branches and the sensation of Chidori sizzling in his hand. Oh. Multiple times. That would explain it.

“The rest of my clones are already on it, but you know how troublesome that is, even with all the tricks I have up my sleeve.”

There was also a deep rooted sense of desperation in those out-of-focus memories, of _dread_ because…

Because…

“Rin!”

All caution forgotten, Kakashi bolted upright, his eyes wide. He didn’t even realize he had screamed out, all that mattered was that _Rin had been in trouble_. That something had been terribly wrong with her and Kakashi had to save her, had to get her back to Konoha healthy and safe because she was one of precious few to him that he still _could_ protect, and because Obito was counting on him to do so.

“Oof, that was fast,” a voice suddenly drew his attention somewhere a few feet to the side, and Kakashi’s head whipped to look at a figure that was crouching over something, finishing fixing an ANBU fox mask onto his face, “Heh, he was the one to wake up first. I won,” the person said to another, one that was sitting on a tree trunk closer to Kakashi, but obviously keeping his distance. A hound mask on this one. Once Kakashi’s eyes fell on him, the man raised his hand in a not-quite-wave.

“Yo!” he greeted cheerfully, as if Kakashi was an acquaintance he had just ran into while on a stroll. As bizarre as that was, however, Kakashi didn’t even care.

“Rin,” he repeated, urgently now. There was a moment of stillness where Kakashi feared the worst, before the second shinobi’s lifted hand moved until it was casually pointing a finger to the right of Kakashi.

He wavered a moment with suspicion, not knowing if it was safe to turn away from the two shinobi. But logic told him that if these people had wanted him harm, they would have done it while he was unconscious, and his need to make sure Rin was okay won out in the end. When he turned to his side, Rin was indeed lying on a bedroll a couple of feet away, looking unharmed. Kakashi could feel some of his tension immediately bleed out from him at the sight. It was pure struggle to move, his muscles aching like they had been wrung dry and then shaken roughly for a while for good measure. However, he somehow managed to shift himself over the short distance separating them to kneel at her side, absent-mindedly noting the conspicuous placement of Minato-sensei’s kunai between the two of their bedrolls.

“Rin,” he whispered, reaching out to tentatively place his trembling fingers over the girl’s hand. She was unnaturally still, but warm, and breathing, and unmistakably alive, “What happened, is she alright?” he asked, for once completely unable to keep his emotions under control. Rin had been so scared and so sure something was wrong with her, even asking him to…

“Her body has been put under immense strain,” it was the one with the fox mask that answered him, somehow having managed to get next to Kakashi without the young jounin even noticing him moving, “It will take a while for it to fully adjust, but I made sure she is in no danger. She should wake up at any moment now.”

Kakashi brought his other arm forward as well, so he could cradle Rin’s hand between both of his, before finally tearing away his eyes from his friend and looking back at the stranger.

“Adjust to what?” he demanded, “Who are you? You’re not really ANBU!” he accused, quite sure of it. Even if he ignored the fact that neither of the shinobi wore standard ANBU garb, the first one had to put his mask back on once Kakashi had woken up. ANBU never removed their masks while on a mission. It just wasn’t done unless absolutely unavoidable.

“Yup, you’re right,” the Fox non-ANBU admitted so readily it actually took Kakashi aback, “But we _are_ Konoha shinobi and mean you no harm. As for what exactly happened to your friend… I’d rather not go through that multiple times. Just know that she is currently in no danger, and that we’ll explain once your whole team is here… and awake.”

Kakashi’s eyes flickered back to his sensei’s kunai that was stabbed so purposefully in the ground between where he had woken up and Rin. This meant that once Minato-sensei learned what had happened, he would be able to get to his two remaining students immediately and see that they were more or less okay. Which implied that the two shinobi were very familiar with how Konoha’s Yellow Flash’s most famous technique worked _and_ that they wanted to give him the best possible access to alleviating his worry.

“…are you Minato-sensei’s friends?” he asked, frowning. At this point, that seemed like the most logical explanation. But the man just chuckled and raised a hand to awkwardly scratch the back of his head, ruffling his dark, undescriptive hair that was a sign of the mask’s incorporated henge being used. Even with his face covered, he seemed sheepish.

“Ah… not exactly,” he said, causing even more confusion in Kakashi’s mind.

“She is waking up,” another voice interrupted just as Kakashi opened his mouth to ask another question. Immediately, he turned back to Rin and was startled enough to almost flinch backwards when he saw the shinobi with the hound mask had at some point appeared on Rin’s other side. How had he?...

He didn’t have much time to marvel at the quietness with which both of the shinobi moved, however, as Rin truly stirred then. The hand Kakashi was holding twitched and he immediately bent over closer to the girl.

“Rin?” he asked, trying to keep his voice low and not startle the girl, “Rin, you need to wake up…”

“Well she doesn’t _need_ to wake up yet, just-“

“Shush.”

“Rin,” Kakashi completely ignored the banter of the two strangers and breathed out, relieved, when his teammate blinked her eyes open, “You’re awake.”

“Kakashi?” she spoke weakly, clearly disoriented, “What… what happened?”

Now that she was awake and, seemingly, truly okay, Kakashi allowed the remainder of tension to leave his body and sat back on his ankles again. He had not failed her. He somehow had still kept his promise to Obito…

“We were running away from Kiri shinobi, remember?” he answered her, carefully, remembering just how distressed she had been, “They had kidnapped you and we had to get away.”

As should have been expected, she tensed at the reminder. But it went beyond that when her eyes widened with pure fear and she suddenly scrambled to withdraw away from him.

“Kakashi… Kakashi you need to… there is something wrong inside me, you have to-“

“Hey, hey, no one has to do anything right now,” it was the Hound that interrupted then, his hands already on Rin’s shoulders to keep her from moving away any further, “No need to be hasty. You’re alright now, we’ll help you out. We know what we’re talking about.”

Kakashi looked anxiously at where the stranger was touching his friend, but forced himself to relax when he realized he was actually handling her very tenderly and gently.

“Who… who are you?” Rin asked in the meantime, only now realizing there were unfamiliar people around.

“We’re friends,” the Hound provided the non-answer with a smile in his muffled voice, “You’re safe.”

“They refuse to explain anything, but they helped us,” Kakashi took over, “I lost consciousness while fighting Kiri ninja, so these guys must have saved us both because I woke up fine, here.”

Rin still looked fearful and unsure, but allowed Kakashi to reach out for her hand again and pull her back onto her bedroll properly. She really didn’t seem like she should be moving.

“Ah, I think we’re about to have more company,” the Fox drew attention to himself next. At everyone’s questioning glances, he shrugged, “Your jounin sensei is about to show up.”

On cue, there was a very familiar flash of movement and Minato-sensei was suddenly right by them, the special kunai already plucked out of the ground and poised for action as the famous jounin eyed the two shinobi next to his students suspiciously.

“Kakashi, Rin, I’m sorry I took so long. Are you two okay?” he asked, somehow managing to position himself so he was in a protective stance between them and the two unknowns.

“We’re fine, Minato-sensei,” Kakashi reported automatically. And then, although he was still not completely sure about anything himself, he added just because it felt right, “Those two saved us, I think. The last time I was conscious, we had been surrounded by enemies, so they must have defeated them.”

The words didn’t make their sensei drop his guard in the slightest. Not that this was surprising.

“Who are you?” the bright blond man asked, his eyes narrowed. They truly were not his friends then if he didn't recognize them, Kakashi noted in his head.

The shinobi with the hound mask stood up, although he remained slouching, and pushed his hands into his pockets with a sigh. Kakashi couldn’t really blame him when he realized that it was the third time in short succession that this particular question had been asked. But they had no one but themselves to blame for not just answering it properly and getting it over with.

“Just fellow green leaves, dancing in the wind,” the tall man answered in what Kakashi recognized as one of the secret phrases Konoha shinobi used in times of unrest to confirm their identities. This did make Minato-sensei lower his weapon a little, but not completely.

“I happen to know very well that both Hound and Fox are currently unoccupied positions,” he stated, obviously talking about the two masks the men were wearing, “You’ve chosen your disguises poorly.”

“Not at all,” Fox denied, unconcerned, “We were not trying to pass as ANBU, we just needed our faces covered at first. And the henge was a convenient bonus,” he explained, running his hand through his anonymously black short hair again as if to underline his point.

“This is not making you sound more trustworthy,” Minato-sensei pointed out rightfully.

“I’m aware. But I promise, we will explain everything in due time,” the stranger said, only now Kakashi was running out of patience.

“You said you’d give explanations as soon as our whole team was gathered and awake. We _are_ now,” he pointed out, shifting so he could pin the man with a glare. He was still suffering from chakra depletion, but he had recovered enough to be able to move properly at least and was ready to support his teacher to the best of his current capabilities in case things got ugly. He was careful to keep Rin behind his back too.

“Ah, no you’re not. Not your _whole_ team,” the fox said mysteriously… and suddenly poofed out of existence with a small burst of smoke.

A clone? But when had he managed to create one without Kakashi ever noticing?

However, with the clone gone, both Kakashi and Minato-sensei were able to see behind where it had been. Only then did the grey-haired boy realize that the real Fox was still in the same spot where he had seen him first – slightly further away, bent over something that they couldn’t quite see from this angle. But it was something that was lying on the ground and…

Was it a person? There was another person here? Who…

‘ _Not your_ whole _team_ ,’ the man had said.

‘ _Not your whole_ team.’

Kakashi’s breath hitched.

“I’m sorry to trouble you with this, Rin-chan, since I know you must still be feeling a bit out of it,” the _actual_ fox-masked shinobi called out towards them then, “But both me and my friend here are rather crap at healing. Since I believe you are a medic-nin, would you mind getting this guy back to consciousness for us so we can finally talk properly and clear up some confusion?”

Kakashi didn’t exactly know why his heart was suddenly beating so loud in his ears, his wide eyes staring at the prone form half-hidden behind trees and untamed grass and traveling bags. He was aware of the hound-masked shinobi strolling forward to join his friend. He was aware of his teacher carefully helping Rin to get up and start walking herself.  But Kakashi’s mind was weirdly numb. As if in a dream, he pushed himself up to his feet and forced himself to walk in the same direction as everybody else.

It truly was a person. First, Kakashi could see the two bare feet, one weirdly paler than the other. Then, the dark robe that the rather small figure was huddled in. The right sleeve was rolled up, exposing a pale arm that the Fox had his hands on, and Kakashi risked sending a small amount of chakra to his Sharingan to make sure he was not imagining the weird movement of energy there.

It was when he was only a couple steps away that Kakashi saw the wild mane of long, black hair. It was dirty and disheveled and half-covered the face of its owner.

Kakashi stopped in his tracks, staring, not quite comprehending or recognizing what he was seeing.

The shinobi looked at him from behind the fox mask for a moment, then lifted one of his hands from the unnaturally pale arm to carefully brush that black hair away from the face it was hiding.

Kakashi’s entire world tilted on its axis, briefly leaving his vision swimming and all sound getting swept somewhere very far away, from where it only reached Kakashi’s ears as an unidentifiable, muffled mess.

And then the moment passed and Kakashi was back to feeling almost _too_ present and clear minded. He could sense Minato-sensei and Rin about to catch up behind him when he finally found his voice.

“Obito?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to apologize. I didn't expect to run into this much trouble updating this story in a timely manner so soon after starting to write it. But recently I've been either very busy or very sick and just couldn't help the delay. Still am very sick right now, but for once not badly enough to be unable to write. So hopefully that means the next chapters won't take quite as long to come out.

Namikaze Minato was, undeniably, one of the strongest people in his village. Actually, he was one of the strongest people in all of the shinobi nations.

This was, understandably, a point of pride for him. But that was only one side of it.

When your abilities were so lauded for being well-rounded, they were suddenly needed for everything. Every mission required his strength and expertise, the hokage wanted his input on every decision, every diplomatic trip called for his presence because his face alone often could turn the tide in discussions… Minato would have rejoiced at the opportunities this opened up for him, making it possible to get experience in all sorts of spheres and bringing him ever closer to fulfilling his dream of becoming Hokage with every step, had it not had a very obvious downside. Being torn between so many things meant Minato could not possibly find time for everything. And as it happened, often the things that he found himself missing or being late to were the truly important things.

Minato would never forgive himself for not being there when they had lost Obito. Kakashi, as a newly minted jounin and with his father’s history hanging over him, had done the best he could have been expected, all things considered. It was Minato’s fault for not having been there for his team.

And that mission, although the most severe example, was hardly the only thing Minato had weighing on his conscience. It seemed to be his fate to be rushing to catch up with everything that was expected of him and to continuously fail to choose right at what was truly important. He felt pretty much resigned that with time, he’d only mess up more and the things he was guilty of would keep piling up.

That’s why, when he heard Rin had been kidnapped and Kakashi had to go and rescue her, he wasted no time before flashing away to where his students had to be, hoping against hope that maybe _this_ time he won’t be too late. But at the same time, deep in his heart he had already known… It was as if his very soul was aware that today was the day he’d lose another one of his team. The only question was… which one?

Would it be Kakashi who, after Obito’s sacrifice, had become more and more reckless, desperate to keep Rin safe? Would he get himself killed while getting the girl to safety, just to keep his promise to his dead teammate?

Or would it be Rin, once again captured by the enemy but possibly killed before Kakashi could even reach her this time? If that was the case, Minato knew it might as well deal the killing blow to Kakashi too.

So as he had tumbled through space-time towards one of his most special marked kunai, Minato had already been going through the possibilities of the loss that might be waiting for him on the other end, and what it would mean for those remaining, including him.

But he certainly hadn’t considered the possibility of getting a teammate _back_ , nor the damage that this sort of development could cause.

“We left him there,” Kakashi whispered, having fallen to his knees at the side of the ghostly apparition that Minato was also staring at right now, unable to believe his eyes, “He had been alive… and we abandoned him there.”

If Minato had worried about his grey-haired subordinate’s mental state after that disastrous Kannabi Bridge mission, then now it seemed like Kakashi was truly broken. But the golden-haired jounin could not even do anything about it at the moment. He felt totally shocked and stricken with guilt himself.

“Is that really… Obito?” Rin, whom Minato was still holding up, also sounded absolutely stunned and unable to comprehend what she was seeing. She clung to her teacher’s side as if for dear life, and it honestly felt like she would fall over the second Minato stopped supporting her. It felt like a dream.

Only it also felt incredibly real. That was definitely not a ghost, it was Obito. Slightly dirtier, older, wilder, more damaged… but Obito. It would have been less believable if the unconscious boy in front of them had looked _exactly_ as they remembered him. But those terrible scars over the right side of his body were exactly what one would expect Obito to have had he survived.

Obito had survived.

“You couldn’t have known,” an unfamiliar voice said, and Minato startled as he had almost forgotten about the two unknown shinobi that were with them right now. It was the one with the Fox mask that had spoken, still gripping Obito’s weirdly pale right arm and seemingly channeling chakra into it, “No one could have expected him to survive after that. And you couldn’t have stayed. You were in enemy territory, surrounded. You did the best you could.”

The man spoke gently, as if he honestly cared to comfort the distraught boy. But Kakashi only shook his head, fingers digging into the dirt next to his knees, eyes squeezed shut against the tears that threatened to escape.

“We should have come back,” he grit out, “If only to recover his body. But we left him there. I should have… I should have…”

A dry sob burst out of his throat then, but the grey-haired teenager refused himself the luxury and relief of actually crying. The heart-wrenching sound was finally enough to get Minato out of his stupor, and he carefully crossed the couple of steps that were still separating them from Obito and gently lowered Rin onto the ground so she could sit next to the best friend she had thought she lost. The girl already had tears rolling down her cheeks and immediately reached out to squeeze the unconscious boy’s left hand while Minato went to Kakashi, squatting down next to him and putting a supportive hand on his student’s tense shoulder.

“He is right. That was enemy territory. As sure as we were that Obito was dead, it would have been too reckless to return. Even the Uchiha clan agreed with that, as much as they hated the idea of a Sharingan possibly falling into the hands of an enemy,” he tried to remind him using logic and reason.

“If it helps, by the time you would have been able to return, you would not have found him anyway,” the stranger added, still speaking softly and with understanding, “You would have just ended up thinking that the Iwa-nin took him for the eye, but he had been taken by someone else almost immediately after being buried under the stones. Had he stayed there long enough for you to be able to find him, he _would_ have been dead and you would have been bringing back a body to Konoha.”

“How do you know all this?” Minato questioned with a frown, as he pulled the almost shell-shocked looking Kakashi to himself protectively, “Were you the ones who took him? Who saved him?”

“…no, we were not,” it was the other man that answered this time, and Minato could swear there was something familiar in that voice, although unlike the Fox-masked shinobi, this one seemed almost reluctant to speak for some reason, “It would probably be better if you heard what had happened from Obito yourselves, since you would trust him more anyway. That is if Rin is feeling up to getting him conscious.”

Minato half expected Rin to be so lost in her emotions that she’d rush to do just that, but was pleasantly surprised when the medic first looked at her squad leader for permission, even if her eyes were obviously pleading.

But it was just that. _Could_ they trust what this Obito would say? Or rather, could they trust this to really be Obito? When he had these two strange people who refused to tell anything about themselves vouching for him? Minato was tempted to try and enter sage mode to see if he could recognize Obito’s chakra then, but with how much time it took him to get there and how bad he was at it, there was no way to do that without wasting time and being way too obvious.

Besides, what point would there be for someone to pretend they were their dead teammate? Such an elaborate setup would be much too likely to fail to be worth it. Besides, Minato had confidence they’d be able to tell if it was really Obito almost immediately after he woke up. If nothing else, his right eye seemed to be relatively unscathed, as unbelievable as that was, so just the Sharingan alone would be proof enough, seeing as one was impossible to fake.

Speaking of which…

“Kakashi,” he spoke, carefully addressing the boy that seemed most affected by the situation of them all, “I know you’re very low on chakra right now, but could you…”

“First thing I did,” the young jounin answered him immediately, his voice sounding strangely hoarse, strangled, “It’s him. There’s no henge or… anything. And he smells like him. I don’t know why I didn’t notice before. There’s new things on top of it, but the scent is definitely Obito’s. I don’t even need to summon.”

There was nothing Minato could say against that. He doubted Kakashi’s senses could be clouded by wishful thinking enough to make any mistake. Asking Kakashi to summon Pakkun regardless would have just meant depleting the silver-haired boy's chakra reserves even lower when they were already at a dangerous level.

“Wake him up, Rin,” he urged finally.

Their medic nin didn’t need to be told twice. She let go Obito’s hand to put both of hers on the sides of the unconscious teen’s head, and a familiar green glow of chakra quickly appeared.

Only as soon as it started, it stopped again as the girl suddenly let go as if burned, staring at her palms with horror.

“There is something wrong with my chakra,” she whispered, “It feels…”

“Your chakra pathways have been… scrambled a little. Readjusted. It will take a little while to get used to how it feels again, but it shouldn’t interfere with your abilities. I promise, we _will_ explain everything soon,” the Fox told them, directing that last sentence mostly at Minato who had been about to try and demand answers once more, “For now just try to ignore it.”

Rin’s eyes were full to the brim with tears and fear when she looked at Minato for guidance again. The jounin stared at the unknown shinobi for a while, trying to read him, but gave up after a few moments and nodded at Rin.

There were a lot of mysteries surrounding him right now, and he hated it, but he saw now other course of action for now than being patient and waiting for the promised explanations.

The green chakra glowed again, this time for longer, emitting that calming humming sound that always accompanied such healing. It took a good few seconds, but finally the unconscious boy stirred, and Rin hastily withdrew her hands again. Everyone held their breath.

Jet-black Uchiha eye blinked and opened, staring straight up at the sky. Then, slowly, it moved to the right.

“You,” the boy said weakly with vague recognition when he saw the man with the Fox mask. His eye closed and opened again in a very slow blink. Then his limbs twitched the slightest bit, “Where’s… Guruguru?”

“It has been taken care of,” the man answered succinctly. Minato swallowed. He might not know what they were talking about, but whatever this Guruguru was, it was definitely also very dead judging from the shinobi’s expression, “That’s not what you should care about, however,” he continued, sounding a little amused now as he tilted his head to indicate Obito he should look to his left.

Slowly, again, the boy turned his head until his right eye could see to his other side… and froze, the eyes widening impossibly when he got sight of the girl next to him.

“Rin,” he breathed out, appearing to wake up more now, his left hand rising to the girl’s cheek tremblingly, “You’re okay? Did they hurt you? I was so afraid when they told me you were in danger…”

Tears were dropping down from Rin’s eyes unhindered again as she grabbed that wrist and pressed her cheek against the palm.

“Oh Obito,” she sobbed, “It’s really you…”

It was. There was no faking the emotion with which Obito gazed at Rin, Minato was sure of it. There was no need to check for the Sharingan or anything else. This was definitely Obito.

He was about to open his mouth to say something himself, when a choking sound burst out from Kakashi, immediately catching everyone’s attention. Obito’s eye widened again when he saw both his teacher and his other teammate next to him as well.

“Minato-sensei… and Kakashi… I never thought I’d be happy to see you, you bastard,” the boy said, his lips curling into a weak smile, “That eye seems to suit you well. I’m glad.”

“Shut up,” Kakashi choked out, fingers digging even deeper into the dirt under them as he squeezed his eyes shut, “Idiot. Just shut up. We thought you were _dead_. Don’t think you can just show up and start making stupid jokes, you absolute moron!”

As he nearly shouted that last sentence out, a tear managed to squeeze through and fell down onto the ground. Kakashi gasped, as if unable to believe what just happened, eyes shooting open again to stare down. Minato couldn’t help but smile at the sight. The fact that Kakashi was finally showing honest emotion was the best sign anyone could have ever asked for.

“Welcome back, Obito,” Minato finally said softly himself, “We really missed you.”

The boy pulled his eyes away from Kakashi at that (probably itching to comment on his rival being the one crying for once while at the same time realizing he really shouldn’t) and met the jounin’s blue eyes with a smile.

“Minato-sensei... I missed you all as well. So badly. For a while, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again… not that I was going to give up, of course,” he said, appearing to recover more and more strength the longer he was awake.

“About that,” Minato started carefully, loath to get to business so quickly but needed answers so he could finally get some sort of grip on the situation, “What happened? How did you survive?”

Obito swallowed at the question and frowned.

“It will be a little hard to believe,” he said, and Minato smiled at him encouragingly.

“The fact that you’re alive is hard to believe. It’s only to be expected than an explanation for it would be the same.”

“I guess,” Obito said, before taking a deep breath and making as if to sit up, only to be suddenly held down by both of the masked shinobi.

“Don’t move,” the Fox ordered urgently, his face gaining a strained expression while the Hound held Obito still via a grip on his shoulders, “I’m still not done taking care of your arm.”

“Taking care of his arm?” unexpectedly, it was Kakashi that questioned this, sharply, “I thought you said you were crap at medical jutsu?”

“Yeah, but what I’m doing here is not medical jutsu,” the shinobi explained chirpily, “It’s, uhh… a power to ah, create. So I am creating sense out of the mess of Obito’s right side.”

Minato’s eyes widened at the carelessly given explanation. That sounded like an impossibly powerful skill for someone to have… or impossibly dangerous, if it was at the wrong hands.

“It won’t take me that much longer, but please just tell your teammates what happened to you without trying to move in the meantime, okay? That would help, thanks”

Obito seemed to want to shrug at the words, his expression that of a person that had seen and experienced so many strange things recently that this didn’t even make the top three. Suddenly Minato was not sure at all that he would like what he was about to hear.

“Well, okay,” Obito started, redirecting his attention back to his teammates as he began his story. Fox seemed to relax while Hound let go and backed away again,  “So the next thing I knew after being buried under those rocks was waking up underground. And I mean underground as in a huge underground cave, not just under those rocks. I was obviously very confused to still be alive, but not as confused as I was when I learned who had saved me,” the boy paused, looking at them as if unsure if he should continue, before taking a deep breath, “It was… Uchiha Madara.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter broke the length I wanted to keep the chapters of this story at. Which is a bit weird, considering I was very reluctant to write in Rin's POV in the first place. I don't like her too much, you see. So here comes a warning as well, I suppose. I don't intend to hate on her though. So although the reasons for why I feel like that slipped into this chapter, it is not meant as Rin-bashing. At all. Please don't get mad at me. There's also more notes for after you read the chapter too if you're interested in my reasoning for some things.

Honestly, there was probably no other possible reaction to that revelation other than a lot of blank stares and the air of incredulousness.

“What?”

The disbelief in Minato-sensei’s voice was palpable.

“See, I told you it would be hard to believe. But I swear that’s true!” Obito insisted, frustrated at their reaction even if he had predicted it himself. Rin, still shaky over everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours, felt a duty to try and calmly clear this up. So she pushed away the terror of her kidnapping, the unknown dread that followed it and even her surprise at seeing Obito alive again, and focused on the present.

“Obito, I know history has never been your strong subject, but even you must remember that Uchiha Madara had been killed decades ago by the Shodaime,” she said gently, already naturally falling back into the way she had learned over the years to best handle her best friend without making him feel offended even when she pointed out his weak points, “And even if he had somehow survived that, how could he possibly still be alive now? He would be way too old. Are you sure it was not just someone claiming to be him?”

“I can’t say it’s impossible. I mean, the man was in no hurry to reveal all his secrets to me and tell me his life’s story, but I know what I saw. It could only be him, whether you believe me or not. I simply have no proof,” the boy said, sounding weirdly subdued, “Either way, he saved me. Or, well, he had these… they were not humans. Some sort of _creatures_. They saved me at his bidding and brought me to him. Healed me, somehow. I didn’t understand a whole bunch of stuff, but they gave me these new limbs, even though they don’t work too well yet,” he said, indicating his weirdly pale right side.

“They will now,” the Fox spoke up then, carefully removing his hands from Obito’s arm, “I’m done. You can try to move it.”

Obito did, gingerly lifting the arm to his face, and then moving his fingers which responded nicely.

“It feels… stronger. And I’m in better control. Thank you,” he said, sounding awed. Rin felt her inner medic urge her to inspect the limb, but she held back. She personally didn’t know yet what to think of the two strange shinobi, but she had a feeling the fox-masked man knew what he was doing better than what she could hope to understand in this case.

“You’re welcome,” the unknown man answered happily, “It was easier than I thought. I guess it helps that I’m so familiar with the material,” he chuckled, but the throw-away remark immediately caught Rin’s notice. And not only hers.

“What do you mean by that?” Obito inquired, frowning in confusion. The Fox stilled for a moment, then turned to his masked companion. Rin didn’t know what silent communication the two were capable of when their faces were fully covered masks and they couldn’t even see each other’s eyes. But some sort of conversation obviously did happen, as after a moment, the Fox shrugged.

Rin had noticed before, of course, that one of the shinobi’s arms was bandaged. But she hadn’t really paid it any mind – plenty of shinobi used bandages as part of their attire, for one reason or another. However, now everyone’s attention was drawn to it when the man used his other arm to push the sleeve of the mesh shirt he was wearing up, so he could pry some of the bandages open just enough to give them a glimpse of what was hidden by them. The skin there was impossibly pale, standing out on this man even more, considering his generally bronze complexion, than on Obito, who was as naturally light-skinned as any other Uchiha.

Obito gasped, shooting up into a sitting position now that he could to inspect the man’s limb more closely.

“He did it to you too?” he exclaimed, incredulous, “Does he do that on the regular or what? Save shinobi and provide them with limbs?

“What?” the Fox choked out, letting go so the bandages snapped back into their places and his sleeve fell back down, effectively concealing him, “No! Madara is not gathering a collection of crippled ninja. What are you, an idiot?” he squeaked, which in turn made the Hound let out an audible snicker. Mask or no mask, it was obvious the Fox glared at his friend for that, “Shut it, you. Anyway, no, my arm was not done by Madara. Although the idea was inspired by him, yes.”

“Madara?” Kakashi spoke up, after having stayed quiet for the last while, “So you’re also claiming that Uchiha Madara is alive?”

“And we can prove it, too,” was the masked man’s answer, in his perpetually happy tone, “But that can wait. You should let your friend finish his story first, don’t you think?”

Even if anyone wanted to argue that, it was obvious the man wouldn’t budge on it and wouldn’t talk before he wanted to. So everyone turned back to Obito then, who fidgeted under the attention.

“There’s not much more to tell. Obviously, I was thankful to the man for the help, but all I really cared about was leaving and getting back to Konoha and you guys. But I was too weak and too dependent on him to do that, and he certainly was in no hurry to let me go when I knew the secret of him being alive. He… he seemed to have some plans for me, kept talking this really gloomy stuff about the world… creeped me the hell out. I just kept trying to get stronger so I could leave regardless of that, but it was so slow going… And then, yesterday? One of those creatures I told you about came back and suddenly told me Rin and Kakashi were in danger. I couldn’t just stay there knowing that! Only I still wasn’t strong enough to do it on my own. Fortunately, Guruguru… that’s another of those creatures… he helped me get to you, I think it was just on a whim? Madara was unhappy to see me go, but he didn’t interfere. I don’t know what he’s doing now. I don’t know if I shouldn’t have told you about him. Maybe that puts you in danger or something…” he looked troubled suddenly.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” the Hound informed them in an almost bored-sounding tone. Rin glanced at his tall form, casually leaning against a tree a couple of steps away. He seemed way less inclined to talk than his friend, but not unfriendly. But he did seem to be keeping his distance from them rather purposefully.

Obito hesitated a moment, clearly itching to demand more on that confident statement, but aware that he won’t get anything out of them until they started speaking of their own volition. So he took a deep breath and got back to his own story.

“When I, or, well, me and Guruguru got to that clearing, you were fighting the Kiri ninja at, it was almost exactly before Kakashi collapsed. I was about to try and help. But then he appeared,” here the boy pointed at the man with the hound mask, “And started fighting them off instead while he,” a finger in the Fox’s direction this time, “Did something… I think it was a seal? I couldn’t move. He said they’d take care of everything, and then knocked me out.”

Something got nudged in Rin’s own memory at the word’s. That’s right… she didn’t know why she hadn’t questioned how she ended up unconscious in this camp before now, but she had been knocked out as well, hadn’t she? Someone had hit her from behind, just as she was about to…

“Will you finally explain your own involvement in this now?” Minato-sensei’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she quickly returned her attention back to the conversation.

“Aaah,” the Fox groaned at that, shifting, so he sat back, leaning onto his arms behind himself, “I suppose there’s no way to postpone that anymore. There’s so much to go through though,” he grumbled, throwing his head backwards, and stayed thoughtfully silent for a few moments, obviously considering how to approach this, “Okay, but can we agree on one thing first? Just pretend you believe everything I say for now, no matter how insane it sounds, okay? Even when I give no explanation. I’ll be able to prove everything later, and explain how we know it all, but it will be a real pain to get through this if you keep challenging everything I say. So just… pretend. Is that cool with you guys?”

Rin, and the rest of her team blinked in obvious surprise. But in the end, Minato-sensei nodded for all of them.

“I suppose we can do that,” he said, although he was obviously a little skeptical. But it seemed good enough for the Fox.

“Great,” he exclaimed, “Then let me start by saying that Madara wasn’t reluctant to let you go,” he said, his mask turning towards Obito, “In fact, he had planned the whole thing out. Didn’t you find it at all suspicious when after months of keeping you in the dark, White Zetsu out of the blue went and told you about the danger your team was in, and then your Guruguru jumped at the chance to help you? No, it was all a carefully laid trap. Madara had manipulated the situation perfectly. Orchestrated Rin’s kidnapping, ensured you’d be there to witness the fallout, which would have been terrible without our interference. He counted on you being brought to despair by what happened, and then turn to him for guidance afterwards.”

Obito looked absolutely stricken at the slew of revelations. The rest of them were not much better either.

“Madara… was behind Rin’s kidnapping?” the Uchiha boy whispered, terrified. Fox nodded decidedly.

“What do you mean that Obito would have turned to Madara afterwards?” Minato questioned next, and the shinobi sighed.

“Madara is, quite obviously, an Uchiha. One that had a lot of time and opportunities to learn how the minds of his clansmen are wired,” he said seriously, “There is something that very few are aware of when it comes to how the Uchiha experience extreme emotion. A sort of a… bloodline curse. Although there were a few different possible outcomes from Rin’s kidnapping, all of them included things or people that Obito loved getting destroyed or killed. The extreme grief would have triggered his mind into breaking, rendering him into being very susceptible to being molded exactly as Madara wanted.”

“I would have gone insane?” Obito asked, looking like he was about to be sick.

“Perhaps ‘psychologically volatile’ is a nicer expression,” the shinobi responded with just a slight bit of hesitation.

“I…”

“It’s not your fault you inherited the genetic wiring that you did,” unexpectedly, Hound entered the conversation, “And besides, Madara had an extra bit of insurance for his plan as well.”

“Right,” the other shinobi took over again, “He had a seal placed on your heart while you were unconscious. It placed extra limitations on your reactions. Do not worry, however. The seal he used is intricate, and impossible to _remove_ , but we managed to find a way to modify it without doing any damage that rendered it completely inert and harmless. We did that right after getting rid of your swirly friend.”

Rin looked at her best friend worriedly, her mind, and everyone else’s, buzzing under the weight of what they were just told. And although Fox had implied that without their interference, any amount of people, including her, could have died, that was not what mattered to her right now. Gently, she shifted closer to the lost looking boy and put her arms around him. Obito struggled for a moment, apparently horrified with himself, but in the end gave up and melted into her arms.

“What would I have done?” he choked out, his voice muffled against her. Fox grew still for a moment in reaction to the question, but then forcefully relaxed again.

“That’s a moot question. It didn’t happen, and it _won’t_ happen. We made sure of it. Dwelling on the possibilities won’t help anyone. Let it go,” he urged quietly, in a way that betrayed he was not telling something again. This time, Rin was glad for that. Whatever it was, she knew she didn’t want to hear that. Didn’t want Obito to hear that.

“That seal…” Minato-sensei started after a few more moments of silence, but the shinobi cut him off.

“I know you’d like to inspect it, but only someone with a Sharingan or Byakugan, perhaps, can see it,” he explained, “Your Kakashi’s chakra is too low for him to do that now, so please wait until he recovers before asking him to describe it to you. It’s not going anywhere after all.  Obito cannot see it because it’s on his own heart. However… he can see the one that had been placed on Rin’s,” he said then.

Feeling her heart stutter when she heard that, Rin found herself backing away from Obito as if to keep him away from danger as she stared down at her own chest, putting a hand over where her heart was tremblingly..

“It has been dealt with the same as Obito’s, do not worry. But Obito can confirm it’s there for any doubters.”

Obito’s Sharingan was already activated by the time the man said that. He directed it at her for a moment, before nodding.

“It’s there,” he said, sounding as shaken as she was, “It’s… I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t know anything about seals. But something is right there,” he said, putting a hand right on top of hers, below her collarbone. She shivered and collapsed back to sit on her heels. Obito’s hand fell back to hang limply at his side, and he forcefully deactivated his eye, squeezing it shut as well for good measure.

“Why was there one on me?” she whispered, “Is that why… why I feel something terrible inside me?”

She was still reluctant to close her eyes. Whenever she did, it felt that the darkness under her eyelids stared back at her, chilling her to the core.

“No,” the negative answer that came back was so simple, but she knew it meant only worse things were about to come, “The reason you feel that way is different. But before I explain it to you, I need you to listen to me,” he said, in such an emphatic way that she lifted her eyes to him without meaning to. The mask made it impossible to see his own eyes, but she could feel them holding her gaze, “Whatever I tell you now, it’s okay. We… _I_ know what I’m talking about here. It will sound bad at first, but I promise to you, everything is going to be fine. Do you understand?”

She nodded, even as her insides churned and she felt doubtful that anything would ever be fine after whatever it was he was about to say.

“Good. Then… well, there is another seal on you right now,” he said softly. He turned to the golden haired jounin and gestured for him at her encouragingly, “You can actually inspect this one. It’s fresh and visible. On her stomach.”

Her teacher looked at her questioningly and she found herself nodding again. The man who was one of the biggest seal enthusiasts in Konoha got closer to her then, and she allowed him to pull her top from her skirt, exposing her stomach. She was afraid to look down, but did so anyway. There were indeed a black patterns on her stomach, ones that said nothing to her, but her teacher was tracing the lines thoughtfully.

“This is… a containment seal. A strong one,” he muttered, “There are two styles of sealing here, however, one of them tweaking the original one. That style is… familiar.”

“We had to modify this seal as well, “ Fox answered the implied question, “The original was specifically designed to break once Rin reached Konoha, as she had instinctively known. Then it would release what’s inside to wreak havoc in the village. Now it won’t break at all, although there are probably still improvements that can be done. I didn’t have the time to think of anything much more intricate.”

“Wreak havoc?” Rin asked, sounding distant to her own ears, “What is it? What is inside me?”

“It’s… well. Madara got Kiri to seal Iso… the Sanbi inside you.”

Rin felt as if the world spun away from under her feet. She gasped and, in a weird rush of strength, pushed away from her teacher, inching away until her back hit the nearby shrubs, where she turned and promptly emptied her stomach.

Distantly, he heard her team also burst into chaos at the revelation, but she could only heave, her heart trying to explain through her throat.

“Sanbi? A bijuu? Why would they…”

“Are you saying that Rin is a jinchuuriki now?”

“Yes.”

Again, a simple answer. But one that sounded like a life sentence to Rin. Then again, it truly was. She crumpled in on herself.

“It’s okay. We told you, you’re going to be fine,” Rin was surprised when she realized that Hound had at some point come close to her and was muttering comfortingly to her, “There is no need to fear, it’s not as bad as it sounds at first. N… He knows what he’s talking about. It will be alright.”

She wiped away at her mouth, trying to listen to him and allowed him to support her as he returned her back closer to her team.

“So that’s why I felt… why I still feel something so dark inside me?” she asked, attempting to calm down somewhat after she settled down once again, “Why I felt a need to… to…”

She couldn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t want to admit to it in front of her team. She lifted her eyes at Fox again, wondering if he maybe simply understood. But after she did, she was surprised to see his demeanor shift slightly. Becoming colder.

“Yes, that was why you were about to do something so stupid that we had to stop you from,” he stated weirdly calmly, “Which reminds me, by the way. Do you really hate Kakashi that much?”

The question was so out of the blue and so venomous under the deceptively casual tone in which it was asked that Rin actually gasped a little and widened her eyes in reaction. The others were also utterly stunned.

“W-what?” she stuttered, “No! I don’t hate him, I _like_ him!” she protested, and then immediately flushed when she realized what she just confessed in front of her whole team. But the masked shinobi wasn’t interested in her embarrassment or was deterred by her answer in his line of questioning.

“Oh, is that it then? You resent him for not returning your feelings so you thought that with your dying breath you’d settle him with enough trauma to smother a man?”

“No! I did not… Why are you saying these things?” she burst out, her eyes brimming with horrified tears, “I didn’t… I never…”

“Then why the hell was your first choice in dealing with your situation was to use him, of all people, to kill you? Jump in front of his Chidori when he had no chance to revert it? To leave him with the knowledge that you died by his hand? When he already blamed himself because he thought Obito died saving him, even though neither of these things were really his fault?”

“Stop talking to her like that!” Obito had somehow managed to spring to his feet and position himself between her and the Fox, glaring fire, while at the same time Hound appeared behind his companion and put a firm grip on his shoulder.

“That is enough,” he said sternly, in a low voice that sounded almost threatening. Rin felt a tear roll down her cheek.

“I… I didn’t,” she sniffled, “I didn’t think… I didn’t want him to blame himself. I just knew I was dangerous, and had to die, and if I had to die I at least wanted…”

She choked on the last of her words, now crying in earnest. She glanced at Kakashi only to see the boy look at her with absolute horror in his eyes. Minato-sensei was back next to him, and even though his face was way more controlled, he also seemed stricken.

“Rin, is that true?” he asked, his voice carefully kept soft, “Were you going to jump in front of Kakashi’s attack to… to kill yourself?”

“I’m sorry,” she cried. She felt absolutely awful. The masked shinobi was right. Her decision had been incredibly rushed… and selfish. She acted upon her fear and her feelings for her silver-haired teammate, not considering for a moment in what state that would leave Kakashi afterwards. After Obito, he had already been acting recklessly, like he was punishing himself, like he was seeking out his own death. If she had succeeded… “I’m sorry,” she repeated, “I just knew, somehow, I knew I couldn’t go back to Konoha no matter what. And I knew I couldn’t kill myself. Something was stopping me so… so I…”

“Rin,” her teacher spoke again, as he came back closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders. The weight was meant to comfort, but also demanded her attention, “I don’t know how you felt right then. I can’t imagine. But just killing yourself should not have been your first choice in the first place, nevermind using… using Kakashi for it. You would have left him in the midst of enemies, shocked and exhausted. He probably wouldn’t have made it back. Your first priority should have been to work with him to get into safety. If you felt you couldn’t go to Konoha, you could have still tried to get deep enough into Fire country’s territory where enemies would not have followed you. Stayed there. Waited for me to come. Given enough information and time to yourself and others to at least _try_ and work out a better solution. Your-“ he cut himself off suddenly, and she felt him squeeze her shoulders again as she continued to cry, “We’ll talk more about this later. You’re in no state for it, right now, and we still have a lot to hear from our new friends here, I believe,” he finished, with a glance at the said men. The Hound was still gripping the shorter man’s shoulder. It looked painful, but if it was, the man showed no sign of discomfort from it.

“I’m sorry,” he said then, relatively calmly, especially compared to how emotional and angry he had appeared before, “That was… excessively mean. But my point stands.”

“And I accept that point,” the golden jounin answered, his voice getting a steely edge to it, “But I’d rather you have made it without verbally attacking my student. Which begs the question why you felt the need to do so in the first place? Why do you care so much?”

“And _how_ do you know all this?” Kakashi demanded as well, apparently recovering slightly from his earlier shock. Rin would have felt warmed by her team's protectiveness towards her, but she was still chilled by the earlier revelations.

Fox sighed.

“I don’t suppose you want to take care of this part?” he asked, obviously directing it at his companion. The tall masked shinobi only let go his shoulder and mutely returned back to leaning against a tree, “Didn’t think so,” the other muttered wryly to himself, scratching the back of his head, “Please do remember your earlier promise to pretend and believe?” he entreated them then, but at their expectant looks just sighed in surrender, “Alright, alright. So, we know all this because… we’re from the future and have learned all about it the hard way?”

Utter silence followed the words. Rin suddenly felt like letting out an inane giggle. What kind of bizarre reality had she ended up in?

“From the future? You’re from the future?” weirdly enough, it was Obito who first found his voice again and asked, incredulously.

“Remember what I said earlier about how I’ll actually have explanations and proof for everything in the end? You should remember. It was not that long ago. Can’t have that bad a memory, can you?”

Oh gods, that giggle was really rising up to her throat now.

“Okay,” Minato spoke then, his eyes closed as he rubbed his forehead, as if to will away a headache, “Okay... Let’s say we pretend to believe you. You know all of this because you’re from the future. Why have you come here then? To warn us and stop things you mentioned before from happening, stop Madara’s plan? Did he succeed then, razed the world in consequence and you've come from some apocalyptic future as the last ditch effort to change things for the better?”

“Ah, not exactly,” Fox fidgeted, looking uncomfortable now, “It was not on purpose at all you see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the thing, I don't fully understand the logic behind the seals on Rin's and Obito's hearts. Just how much did they supposedly influence them? They're supposed to prevent them from killing themselves, at least, but Rin was still able to jump in front of Kakashi's chidori which was as much an intentional killing of self as jumping off a cliff, in my opinion. She simply could not raise her own hand against herself then? In which case, if she really saw no other option than to die, she should have done the aforementioned jumping off a cliff thing. Or jumping in front of an enemy's attack against Kakashi. Doing that to Kakashi was just incredibly selfish of her, in my opinion. Yes, she is a young girl in panic, but come on. She's still supposed to be a trained kunoichi, she should have been able to do better than that, I won't let her off that easily.  
> Naruto's (oops, I'm betraying who the Fox really is, I'm sure all of you are soooo surprised) anger might feel a little OOC, but I don't think so. He can get really angry at moments in the anime, when it comes to certain things, and I think Rin's effect on Kakashi's life would have triggered such a rant from him as well. He's willing to let it go, in the end, but he can't just ignore the fact that this girl's decision had had such a devastating effect on some of his most precious people.  
> Obito too, by the way. But that's a whole another story.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, lots of notes for this one. That's never a good sign. Sorry.
> 
> First of all, the length of this chapter got out of hand... as I sort of expected. 
> 
> Secondly, there is a very lengthy explanation in here that I was very conflicted about putting in. On the one hand, I could have left it at a couple of lines that gave the general idea, because this fic is not supposed to get too deep or technical, and this might be ruining the flow a bit. It's a block of text. I could have just put the full explanation in a separate one-shot or something, since I had it figured out and it would be a shame to let it stay at the back of my head, unused. But at the same time, it also felt that glossing over the full explanation would break the immersion for this fic because like hell Minato and his team would be okay without getting a proper understanding on wtf had happened. In the end, I decided to keep it in, and hope that it would be fine with you guys.
> 
> Thirdly... in this fic, Obito's final gift to Kakashi was permanent. I understand Kishimoto's reasoning for leaving Kakashi sharingan-less at the end of the series to wrap that story line up, but I find it that if Obito was able to give them to Kakashi at all, then it is no less believable that it wasn't temporary. And I am a god in this fic's universe so what I decide stays. Ha.  
> (although this is integral to the explanation of why and how Naruto and Kakashi got to the past, it isn't really THAT big of a plot point, so don't worry too much even if you don't like the idea for some reason)  
> 3b: because, as I said, I'm the god in this fic, I also decided that Kakashi is also capable of activating/deactivating the sharingan properly as he pleases because the Obito was able to give them to him properly this time. Otherwise it could be... pretty bad, really, if Kakashi is constantly sapped of chakra.
> 
> TLDR: chapter might have a different feel than the ones before. Also longer. Also, surprise AU re:Kakashi's eyes.
> 
> Now go on, read the chapter and hopefully enjoy it? If you don't like the block of text in the beginning, there's still enough of chapter aside of it to hopefully make up for it.

“You’ve traveled through space-time… on an accident?”

As an orphan who had lost his parents on the day of his birth, Naruto had never expected to be in a situation where his dad would be demanding him to explain himself like he was a disobedient child that had just tried to bullshit his way out of trouble. Yet here he was.

Granted, he had never expected to be faced with a lot of things about his current predicament.

Konoha’s Yellow Flash’s voice was dripping with so much skepticism that it was very clear how utterly ridiculous he found the idea of accidental time-travel. Given just how much effort the (future?) Yondaime himself had put into making the space-time technique he was now so famous for work, Naruto could understand that reaction. But was there any way of telling about this that would sound believable? If there was, he didn’t know it.

Naruto inwardly took a moment to curse out his companion, who was entirely too relaxed as he left Naruto floundering to explain everything. It should have been Kakashi doing this. Naruto’s former sensei not only personally knew how to best deal with these four people, he was also in general better at explaining things as complicated as this.

Naruto? Just keeping his verbal tick under control while he spoke was already hard for him. And it _was_ necessary, considering he had no idea how his dad would react to him talking so similarly to his mom.

Then there was the rant at Rin that he hadn’t been able to hold back. He had gone a bit off script with that one. Not that they had a script for this at all, but if they _had_ , that wouldn’t have been on it, Naruto was pretty sure.

But of course, Naruto couldn’t really hold the fact that Kakashi left this up to him against the man. He knew, after all, just how difficult this had to be for the other. For all the outward picture of aloofness, Naruto knew Kakashi was completely filled with tension and a myriad of conflicting feelings inside. Dealing with what he perceived to be his biggest failures… even as they corrected the things one by one, Kakashi came no closer to forgiving himself. That was just how the man worked, and Naruto had long since learned that about him.

Naruto swallowed and pulled his attention back to the conversation at hand.

“No, we traveled through space-time on _purpose_ ,” he tried to clarify as convincingly as he could, “We only went through it into the _past_ on accident.”

Apparently, the distinction didn’t really help, as it was met with four rather blank stares.

“Look, you have to understand,” he started then, knowing this was going to be a long morning… and the sun was not even up yet, “The things that we’ve told you about so far, they’re all part of a bigger picture. We’ve done enough now to stop most of it from happening already, we’ll do even more later, but without our interference, in the future that we came from? Bad shit happened. There was another great war and it was by the skin of our teeth that we stopped the world as we know it from ending. But we _did_ save ourselves. We got through, we managed to sort things out and we had peace. We would have never chosen to mess with that on purpose by going to the past even if we _had_ thought about the possibility. It was just too great a risk. Sure, people had died that shouldn’t have and we would have given a lot to get them back. Things happened that were incredibly painful and it would have been great if we could have reverted them. But we had peace, we had stability. It was enough.”

Naruto paused to see how his audience were taking his words so far, and was relieved to note they seemed to have lost some of their incredulity. His earnest tone was apparently getting them to take him seriously.

“It wasn’t perfect, however. A certain part of the population was… dissatisfied. They wanted something that just wasn’t viable,” he went on, closing his eyes for a moment as he remembered.

In retrospect, it hadn’t been unexpected. In the wake of all the death and other losses that the Fourth Shinobi War had brought, it was not surprising that some of those most affected looked back to their brief time within the Mugen Tsukuyomi and found that to be the better alternative than dealing with reality. The disillusioned wanted back into the dream where their loved ones were still alive, where their homes were still standing.

Over the months, the pockets of unrest had grown as the movement found its momentum, finally reaching a peak about a year after the war. The shinobi nations had dealt with it the best they could, offering official support, opening talks with the most vocal supporters of the idea. And over time, it had simmered down a lot. But even five years after Kaguya’s defeat, there were still those who refused to let go and fought to force those with the power to do so to put the world to sleep again.

“They were hurt people, desperate people,” he spoke sadly, “We wanted to help them, not beat them down. Even when they attacked, we did our best to simply subdue them, but sometimes that was a struggle since some of them were strong enough to force our hands. So the two of us,” he said, gesturing between himself and Kakashi, “We came up with a technique of how to best deal with them.”

It had somewhat limited usefulness, as Kakashi and him were the only ones capable of it. But most attacks targeted either Naruto or Sasuke, since the two of them were absolutely necessary to get the Mugen Tsukuyomi up again. Sasuke, in his lonely travels, usually just escaped whenever faced with the situation, since he had no better choice. That left Naruto trying to actually deal with the people. And although there were those protesting that he always traveled with the Rokudaime Hokage together, it had somehow worked out.

“The idea was to capture them swiftly and without hurting them so they could later be convinced to see reason,” Naruto continued, “Fortunately _he_ ,” here Naruto pointed at Kakashi, who inanely flashed a piece sign with his fingers when Team Minato glanced at him, “Has a very handy pocket dimension that he can tuck people away into temporarily. But there are two issues with it.

“One is that the chakra consumption when moving more than a few people through space-time into said dimension is ridiculous, and depending on the number of attackers, doing so could sap him enough to even kill him. That was where I came in, since I have huge chakra reserves that I could share so he could do his thing.

“The second problem was time. However many of these people attacked, we had to deal with them all at once or there might still be casualties. But locking onto all targets and charging the transportation jutsu could take a while. That was, well, where I came in again,” Naruto awkwardly scratched the back of his head, “Well, we both worked on the design of the seal since it was intricate as hell, but I had to be the one activating it.”

“Seal?” Count on the mention of seals to get Namikaze Minato’s interest spiking. Naruto allowed himself a grin behind his mask. He had never encountered this personal trait of his dad’s himself, but Kakashi had told him loads of stories about it over the years, so it was amusing to witness the proof of the man’s obsession for himself.

“It’s an ingenious idea if I do say so myself,” Naruto said, “Affecting the flow of time in general is impossible. You can’t stop it or slow it down or reverse it or anything, with seals or otherwise. But moving through it? It’s definitely tricky, but that’s pretty much what space-time jutsu are about, isn’t it? Even though most of those, like yours,” he nodded slightly towards his dad, “Only deal with the space aspect of it. Our seal is the opposite. What it does is that it puts the ones within it in a sort of… capsule, which takes you through time. Backwards. Exactly one second per, well, _second_ , for as long as you power the seal with chakra.”

Naruto fell quiet for a few moments as he let his audience absorb it. Rin looked a little confused while Obito had his face scrunched up as if he was trying very hard to not get completely lost. Little Kakashi was frowning as he tried to keep up with the concept.

His dad looked like he had just heard something utterly amazing, his eyes wide and his jaw dropped open a little. Naruto felt a wide grin on his own face, as his heart fluttered with pride at seeing the man he admired so much react like this.

“It worked perfectly for us,” he spoke again after a while, “We used it many times over the years, sometimes in different situations too. It essentially held us still within the flow of time, in one moment, so we could do what we needed to before letting it go again.”

“So… I suppose something went wrong with it at some point?” It was the silver haired boy who asked then, and Naruto held back a chuckle since it was obvious the young jounin had been swallowed up by his explanation and was now taking it at face value, forgetting to disbelieve it for the moment.

“Crappy timing,” Naruto said simply, as if it wasn’t something that had turned his and Kakashi’s whole world upside down, “The exact moment as I was slamming the seal down in another such situation, an attack hit right at our feet, within the seal’s radius. It didn’t hurt us, but the attack was a chakra blast that went straight into the seal and messed things up. It flared the seal’s power up for a second, and made it go out of control. Since I was starting to power it up with my own chakra at the same time, it also latched on to that, somehow managing to slurp up about half of my reserves before I could cut it off. By then it was too late. Forget second per second, we were _years_ into the past. Not only that, the space part of space-time somehow got tangled in as well, so we were spat back out in Konoha. That was what screwed us over the most.”

Naruto swallowed again, his mind getting lost in the confusion and panic of that moment.

“You see, had we stayed in that random spot in the forest, we might have had the chance to figure out what happened after we emerged. Kept ourselves from doing anything that could affect the future and thus not cut ourselves off of the ability to return there. But we went from one battle right into the midst of the Chuunin Exam Konoha Invasion and we didn’t know what was happening. So instinct took over.”

“In the midst of _what_?” Obito demanded, startled, and Naruto blinked as he hadn’t even thought twice about mentioning it. He waved the question off dismissively.

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t happen here anymore,” he paused and blinked, “Probably,” he amended after a moment, “The important part is that we were in the middle of a conflict, got attacked immediately and thus retaliated. All in all killing one shinobi, hurting another eleven. Twelve lives affected directly, many more who _saw_ us. It was a huge change. The way we figured it out later, this cut the timeline off from that moment to the one that we had come from, creating a sort of… loop on the side that had both already happened and would never happen. It was impossible to get back in it and continue from where we had left off. It’s just a stagnated bubble that’s completely removed from the newly moving timeline. Everything from those years was… _is_ lost to us.”

It was hard not to get lost in the grief of that again. But they had spent quite a lot of time getting over that, so Naruto shook himself out of it forcefully and continued.

“It took us a long time to figure it out, longer still to accept it. We tried getting back in so many ways, but it was impossible. Finally we gave in. Tried to look for silver linings. We were in the past, maybe we could change some things for the better. Only we had messed up that particular timeline too, not to mention it was a time when it was already too late to fix some things that came to mind. So we decided to hell with it. If we were going to be fixing things, we might as well go even further back and start from the things that started the chain of events, fix even more. We managed to recreate the conditions for that “malfunction” of the seal on our own, but it’s not an exact science that you can aim properly. It seems to gravitate towards times of important events, however. The next jump into the past we made us put us right after the Uchiha massacre-”

“The what?” It was the girl who immediately gasped now, rightly horrified by the sound of it.

“Doesn’t matter. Won’t happen anymore,” Naruto recited again, “ _Probably_ ,” the Uchihas were a ticking time bomb, and even without Kyuubi’s rampage, the unrest among them might still rise up and explode at some other trigger. Konoha had to start treating them fairly if there was a chance to avoid it completely, “That’s something we’ll have to keep an eye out on. In any case, we then made another jump and landed here about a day ago. Just in time to figure out _when_ we were at and then rush to act. Ideally, we would have gone to maybe one more year into the past, but since it’s all rather unreliable, we decided this would have to be good enough,” he finished his explanation rather blandly. He felt weirdly exhausted after all that talking.

They hadn’t been able to save Obito from going under those rocks in the first place. Naruto knew Kakashi had been… disappointed about that, but the older man had to agree that this was still far enough to work for what they had set out to do. They could change pretty much all the major events that they knew about intimately enough to be able to do so. Jumping once more meant risking that this time they’d go ten or fifty years back with how inaccurate the process was. Sure, perhaps preventing Madara from leaving Konoha and fighting Hashirama Senju in the first place would be more like taking out the actual root cause (other than going thousands of years back to Kaguya and risking that there would be no _chakra,_ or _shinobi,_ or _Konoha_ ), but it would render everything far too unpredictable for them further along the line.

Not to mention that as much as they wanted a better outcome for the shinobi world in general, they couldn’t deny that they were mostly motivated by improving (or saving) the lives of those they cared for personally.

“…so how many years back are you, all in all?” Minato asked thoughtfully after a short silence.

“Twenty-five or so,” Naruto answered tiredly.

“It sounds like you’ve played a dangerous and reckless game,” the golden jounin pointed out seriously, his earlier giddiness and fascination disappearing in the face of all he just heard, “One might even question what gives you the right to decide which events should be changed and which not.”

“Perhaps,” Naruto shrugged, not denying the questionable ethics of it all, “Maybe we didn’t really have the right, but we did have the means. It is done, and the world _will_ be better off for it. We’ll make sure of it,” he stated firmly, which evoked a narrow-eyed look from his father.

“How can you be so sure you’ll be able to?”

“I just am,” Naruto responded evasively. Heavy silence followed the statement, and he could feel his dad’s eyes drilling into him. But after a while, the blond man seemed to realize there would be no way to get him to elaborate on that right then, and reluctantly let it go.

“Are we honestly considering believing all that?” little Kakashi joined the conversation unexpectedly, looking at him distrustfully again, as well as flicking his eyes between the members of his team to gather their reactions.

“He has a point,” Minato said softly, “Your explanation might make sense, but it is hardly the proof you’ve promised us. And we still don’t even know who you are exactly and if we should really trust you.”

Naruto was well aware of this. He glanced at his companion, but although he was sure Kakashi had to know he was being looked at, he received no reaction. They had gone over various ways of how to go about this, and there were many, but they had never come to a real conclusion or agreement. So it was up to Naruto to decide now, if Kakashi’s refusal to interfere was anything to go by.

“I won’t show you that seal,” Naruto started slowly, “We revealed this all to you because we knew we’d need other people’s help to fully fix things, and we trust you. But the fewer people know the actual design of the seal, the better. Less chance of it falling into the wrong hands.”

His dad could possibly re-create a version of it himself if he wanted to, but there was no reason for him to do so. And Naruto wasn’t sure that even someone as knowledgeable about seals as his dad would truly be able to do so without the help of all the Uzumaki clan knowledge he and Kakashi had gathered from the other nations after the war, once they’ve become true allies and were willing to part with what they've scavenged from Uzushio.

“There is, however, another seal I _can_ show you,” he continued, his mouth suddenly dry and his stomach churning inside him. He was reluctant to tell this next part, because he knew it would bring pain. But he also knew that they’d have to tell his dad about this at some point, so they might as well use it as proof now, “This one was created and placed by you in the future, so you would recognize it,” he finished in almost a whisper. He slowly stood up then, straightening his back, and tugged his shirt up in front so his stomach would be fully exposed. Kurama’s seal might have been fully opened, but it remained on his body and became visible whenever he called for the chakra of the Bijuu, which he did now purposefully.

Minato stood as well to walk up to him, stepping past his students that were sitting on the ground to finally crouch down a little so he could inspect the seal just like he had done with Rin’s. His face was curious, and Naruto fought against the instinct to close his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the moment when, he knew, that expression would turn to something altogether less happy.

“This is really mine,” the future Hokage said, sounding absolutely fascinated, his fingertips ghosting over the lines but not quite touching Naruto’s skin, “Here, there’s even my Flying Thunder God formula integrated at this part,” he muttered, a small smile appearing on his lips at the unexpected discovery, “Only… I don’t understand,” he added then, as he looked over the seal in its entirety again, confusion settling on his face, “I placed this on you? This is… It’s Eight Trigrams, clearly. Why would… It’s used to contain… What is…”

The man quite obviously felt he was missing some vital details to connect all the information presented to him, which he did. Naruto spoke up again, as softly and calmingly as he could.

“There’s a reason why I could help Rin as well as I did. Well, several reasons. But one of the most important ones is because this seal, as you suspect, does also contain a Bijuu and I’m intimately familiar with how that works,” he revealed quietly, putting a hand over his seal. Waited a couple seconds, then continued, “You know very well who Kyuubi’s current jinchuuriki is and that they’re safely in Konoha now, right?”

His dad nodded, still not quite understanding, or maybe subconsciously refusing to understand. Naruto wavered another second before talking on.

“However, in the future… Kyuubi is within me,” he finally stated, watching as his father’s face crumpled. There was, after all, only one thing a change of vessels could mean to a Bijuu’s former jinchuuriki, “I am sorry, I know that’s not easy to hear,” Naruto stated, sincerely, “But you’re also familiar with Kyuubi’s chakra well enough to recognize it. For it to be somewhere else while simultaneously in Konoha… The chakra itself can’t be faked. It should be proof enough. So…”

Saying nothing else, Naruto let enough of Kurama’s chakra leak through to be noticeable not just to Minato, but to all others around him as well. The moment the crimson threads of power reached the blond man’s senses, he paled and shot up to his feet.

“That’s real,” he stated hoarsely, “That’s really… you’re really…”

Naruto let the chakra get absorbed back into himself and watched as his dad backed away a few steps, running a hand through his hair jerkily, turning one way, then the other, pacing as he tried to wrap his mind around what he just learned.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated once more. His dad’s students were looking between one of them and the other, probably confused as none of them yet knew the identity of Konoha’s current jinchuuriki. From the look of it, that won’t last for long.

Eventually, Minato got a grip on himself again and stood still in front of Naruto, although his hand remained in his hair and his eyes were squeezed shut, a very forced fake smile on his face.

“You… you said something like twenty-five years. That’s a long way off. Of course… I mean, it would be almost silly of me to expect… Kushina is a ninja after all, and we’re still at war and…” he cut himself off, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself.

“It won’t happen again,” Naruto tried to comfort his dad, ignoring it even as he saw young Kakashi’s eyes widen as he connected the dots, “We’ve changed enough already to prevent it.”

“How… How had it happened?” Minato asked regardless.

“Her seal weakened during childbirth,” Naruto revealed with a heavy heart, struck by the grief on his father’s face. At the words, Minato’s eyes snapped opened and he stared at Naruto, “You were aware and prepared for that, but through Madara’s machinations… She died while protecting Konoha and her newborn son. You both did.”

“A son?” the golden-haired man breathed out, completely disregarding the news of his own alternate’s death in favour of this information. Naruto hesitated a moment. But after all, it was only a matter of time…

“Yeah,” he croaked out, “A son. Uzumaki Naruto.”

Without letting himself think twice about it, Naruto raised his hand to the mask he had been wearing this whole time and pulled it away from his face, simultaneously breaking the henge the mask had held over his general appearance, and straightened out as he became the subject of four very wide-eyed, very shocked gazes. With nothing to obstruct it, after all, his identity became very clear even to these people who had never known he’d exist before. Even in just the twilight of the barely rising sun and the dying embers of the nearby bonfire.

“You’re Minato-sensei’s _son_?” Somehow, it was predictable for Obito to be the one to exclaim this. Naruto smiled awkwardly.

“I look similar enough to you that I had to conceal my appearance before meeting you to not seem too suspicious, you know,” he explained to Minato, pointing at the aptly chosen fox mask, feeling weirdly embarrassed. He and Kakashi had nicked their masks from Konoha just before jumping through time a second time, figuring they’d come in handy, “I couldn’t reveal my identity before you could have possibly believed it,” he said, before meeting the other blonde's stunned eyes square on, “So uhm… hi, dad?”

This seemed to partly shake the man out of his stupor.

“My son?”

“Yeah, your son.”

“Naruto? Like… like from sensei’s book?”

“I’ve been told you asked him for permission to use it,” Naruto offered, still feeling incredibly awkward.

“I sealed Kyuubi… into my own son?” Minato sounded absolutely horrified now. In response, Naruto felt some tension seep out of himself and he actually laughed.

“You had good reasons. I’ve forgiven you for that,” he reassured the man.

“So wait, they’re really from the future then, sensei?” Rin’s voice interrupted their chat and both of them turned to look at her and the rest of the teens that were staring at Naruto.

“It would seem so,” Minato confirmed, after another moment of consideration, “That was definitely Kyuubi’s chakra. And some of the things he mentioned… very few people have that knowledge and would be able to use it to convince us.”

“Like the fact that Kushina-san is Konoha’s jinchuuriki?” little Kakashi demanded bluntly, and Minato winced bodily. Obito, the only one to not have realized that yet, spluttered at the revelation.

“Ah, I should not have let that out,” Minato muttered, clearly troubled over his slip of tongue back when he had been so shocked, “This is incredibly sensitive information. I hope I don’t have to tell you that you can’t reveal this to _anyone_ else,” he fixed his students with a very stern look then, causing them all to nod seriously.

“Okay, but if this is sensei's son,” Obito spoke up again after the moment passed, “Then who’s that?” he asked, pointing a finger at the masked figure that had stayed silent and unmoving this whole time. From the way his other team-members startled, it was clear that they had completely forgotten about the existence of the other man from the future.

Naruto looked at his companion as well, with significance in his gaze. Kakashi uncrossed his arms, letting them fall to his sides from his chest, and straightened out from leaning against the tree, but made no move to take off his own mask.

“I’m fine, thanks,” he drawled out, and Naruto huffed, raising an eyebrow.

“Maa, don’t you think this is unnecessary? They know who _you_ are, and they have their proof. There is no need for me to reveal myself,” the older man said, sounding almost petulant, but Naruto was having none of it. He knew why Kakashi was trying to avoid it, after all, and he was determined to make him get through his misplaced feelings of shame and guilt at least somewhat.

“We’ll need to cooperate with them quite a bit if we can hope to properly fix everything. You can’t honestly intend to stay behind a mask forever?”

Pointed silence answered his statement, and Naruto felt himself redden as he felt the judgement radiating from his companion.

“Shut up! You know what I mean. Just get it over with so we can move on to other matters!” he demanded, knowing that Kakashi would have to submit to reason eventually. And, as expected, the man sighed in response, clearly giving in, even if he did take a brief second to tilt his face upwards, as if he was asking the heavens “Why me?”. Only after doing so did he come to stand right next to Naruto.

He then lifted a hand to the porcelain Hound mask, immediately disabling the henge, thus there was a moment when his characteristic spiky silver hair appeared before he had even taken off the mask and truly revealed his identity. Then, between that hair, the dark mask covering his lower face, and the scar over his left eye, there was no way Team Minato would not recognize him for who he was. Adult or not, Kakashi had a very distinctive look.

“Yo!” he said, falling back to his habits in the tense situation and curling his eyes into his usual smile while throwing his hand up into a greeting. This was only met with flabbergasted silence, so he re-opened his right eye (leaving his left closed was a habit he still sometimes reverted to) and turned to Naruto accusingly.

“See, no one wanted to see me,” he complained, hiding the far more complicated and conflicting emotions under the casual act. As usual. Naruto’s heart swelled with fondness over the familiarity of it, even as this was drowned out by the worry he felt about how this would end up affecting Kakashi in the long run.

“They did probably have a few too many shocking revelations in a very short order,” he admitted with a shrug, as he glanced at his father’s team. They were all frozen, but the younger version of the man beside him seemed to have become ghostly pale on top of it, “Just give them a few moments and they’ll get over it?”

“Ah, I guess you’re right,” Kakashi sighed, scratching the back of his head with one hand while pushing his other into his pocket, having stowed away his ANBU mask… somewhere. At some point, “I’ve forgotten how easy it can be for people to be shocked by little things like this. Nothing seems to faze me anymore in my old age,” he said sagely, making Naruto simply roll his eyes at the absurdity of the statement.

It also caused a snort to come from an unexpected source. It appeared like at least one member of Team Minato finally recovered.

“Hey, Bakashi, look,” Obito grinned, “It seems like someone actually managed to remove that stick from up your ass at some point in the future.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, I just want to say, thank you all SO MUCH for all of your support for this fic. Especially on the last chapter. It is truly amazing, and I've been moved to almost-tears by both the number of comments and the kindness in them. It's just... wow. It means the world to me. Thank you again, I hope I won't disappoint you all and you'll continue to make me so so happy by giving me feedback :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am VERY sorry about the delay with this chapter. It was a nightmare to write. I literally have twice the amount of text that I had written and then discarded than there is in the final chapter. So I have essentially written the chapter three times over.
> 
> As it has now become almost a tradition for me to expose my insecurities about the chapter, I can just say that I am pretty sure that noone will be fully satisfied with it. That's the truth that I fought hard against accepting and that led me to rewriting so much. But truth is, the very nature of this fic prevents it from being fully satisfying, since it is more or less a set-up fic. The only way for it to touch upon everything is if it was sixfty chapters long and not six. And that is just not what I wanted to do with this fic.
> 
> So, please read and, very hopefully, still enjoy!

Even after seeing a little of how he had interacted with Naruto, which had prompted Obito’s comment in the first place, it was obvious that that the old ( _alive_ ) version of his team probably didn’t expect the mocking remark at his expense to be met with _amusement_ by someone who they knew to be a tight-strung and prideful individual.

Yet that was exactly what they got.

“I’m glad you approve,” Kakashi chuckled amenably, ignoring the expectations he was defying and just allowing himself to absorb the sight of the person he was responding to.

After he had gone from an almost sanctified version of the _boy_ in Kakashi’s mind, to the twisted, broken version that the _man_ had become, it was stupidly relieving to hear Obito just be so _Obito_ right now. The actual, original Obito. Sure, the version currently in front of him had still obviously been affected by his involuntary stay with Madara to some extent, but maybe, just maybe, there was no truly irreversible damage there.

It still felt very unreal. Kakashi still kept seeing _versions_ of his team overlaying the reality. The ghosts from the past, from the future, from his nightmares. But minute by minute, it got better. By now, he no longer expected Rin to suddenly turn to him to spit accusations of him killing her. Not while he was still awake, at least.

Instead, the girl seemed torn somewhere between being completely shocked by the new image this adult Kakashi before her was presenting, and being riveted by it. And all four people before him were, of course, further startled by his reaction to Obito’s words. Noone more so than his younger self.

“What?” the silver-haired teenager let out, a scowl appearing on his face and Kakashi found himself the subject of a very judgmental look-over.

He could guess very accurately what was going on in his younger self’s mind. As a boy, he had made it a point to always present himself in what he thought to be a dignified manner. As the most proper, unshakable, by-the-rules shinobi possible. It would thus not escape his younger self’s notice that he now used that painstakingly acquired control over himself to appear as much the opposite of that as possible, with his slouch, casual demeanor and a willingness to laugh at himself that had to seem absolutely alien to the younger Kakashi.

“Well, it was a compliment, wasn’t it?” Kakashi answered, pretending to not understand what his teenage self was confused about, “So of course I’m glad to receive it. Or have you forged some sort of an emotional attachment to that stick? I certainly don’t remember doing so, but my memory is not as good as it used to be in my youth…” he continued playing dumb, making the incensed boy splutter.

In reaction to this, Kakashi could feel Naruto shift imperceptibly closer to him, to the point where the older man could feel the warmth of the blonde’s hand radiating through the few millimeters that separated it from his own. He resisted the urge to turn and look at his companion, as he fully understood the intention behind the small movement.

The four people before him would remain ignorant to it, but Naruto, unlike anyone else, could look straight through his silly act and see the hate that currently fueled it. The blonde knew him well enough to try and quietly soothe him with his supportive presence alone. And _because_ it was Naruto, it worked.

But only to a point.

Kakashi couldn’t help it. Although he knew that he had already started changing for the better since Obito’s “death”, he still saw his younger self as the person whose stupidity and mistakes had caused incredible amounts of pain and grief. He hated this boy and everything he stood for. He hated him for everything he had done, and would have done. It was so hard to swallow the feeling down, even though he knew he had to if he wanted to guide his younger self to understanding what he was doing wrong even without tragedies _forcing_ him to.

“A compliment?” the teen-him could not hold back, eventually, as if trying Kakashi’s resolve not to snap at him on purpose. One could practically see the disdain bubbling up in the teen before it finally exploded, “I can’t believe this! You… you’re just… I would _never_ … What the hell?! These have to be some pretenders after all, I would never become anything like _this._ ”

He was breathing hard once he was done with this tirade. But before the boy could continue expressing his sudden skepticism at the time travelers really being who they were, his teacher stepped over to put a calming hand on his shoulder and then looked at the grown version of his student curiously.

“Our Kakashi might be slightly overreacting, but I must admit, even to me, the transformation of character that you’ve apparently gone through is a little… puzzling,” Minato stated. It was clear he didn’t actually start doubting their story again or was challenging his identity. But he _was_ requesting some sort of explanation.

“Yes, well, losing all the people closest to you in short succession, mostly because of your own fault, tends to change a person,” Kakashi answered cheerfully, immediately making everyone quiet down abruptly with the sheer bluntness and truth in that statement.

“…right,” Minato spoke again after a pause, muttering half to himself, “Right now, you’re still struggling with finding how to cope with your father’s death, and you already implied that without your intervention we would have lost Rin today,” the girl winced at the reminder, “If I die as well as Kushina…” his voice hitched a little at these words, but he then frowned, looking up to meet his adult student’s eyes, “Obito _is_ alive. And he came here, with or without your interference,” he stated, a question implied. As Kakashi froze inwardly, not knowing how to handle this without mentioning things that were best left unsaid, Naruto stepped up, rejoining the conversation after a while.

“In our timeline, because of Madara’s machinations, Kakashi-sensei continued to think Obito was dead for… eighteen or nineteen more years,” he revealed.

‘Madara’s machinations’ was quickly becoming their go-to phrase for avoiding mentioning certain things, and it was only a matter of time before they were called out on it. In fact, Minato’s eyes narrowed a little and he opened his mouth to probably challenge exactly that. But then the small bait that Kakashi knew Naruto had slipped into his words on purpose (the younger man was way more clever than most people used to give him credit for, even if Kakashi wasn’t too thrilled about his chosen topic for said bait) seemed to register in the golden-haired jounin’s head and visibly worked in diverting his thoughts.

“Kakashi… sensei? Oh, you became the instructor of my son’s team?” he asked, his demeanor lightening up a little at the idea, “Of course, that would make sense. I guess with the rest of us gone, the two of you probably got to be quite close, with all those losses in common…” he spoke, not noticing how both arrivals from the future tensed up at the words. He just turned to Naruto and continued talking, “Speaking of which… if both me and Kushina were gone, then who cared for you? Kakashi was still so young… don’t tell me, Jiraiya-sensei?” he questioned, the worry in his voice battling with excited curiosity. Naruto shuffled his feet uncomfortably and Kakashi clenched his fists in his pockets even as he stayed outwardly relaxed.

“It was, uh, actually Jij… uhm, Sandaime,” Naruto answered, somehow managing to keep up a smile of his own, “He checked in on me as much as possible. I mean, he was understandably busy, but he tried…” he chuckled humorlessly, raising an arm to self-consciously rub the back of his neck.

“Sandaime?”

The confusion in Naruto’s father’s voice was palpable. Guilt squeezed at Kakashi’s heart anew, even if he knew he hadn’t had any choice about _this_.

“You did… You _will_ become the next Hokage soon, but Sarutobi-sama returned to the post after your death,” he explained, voice somber for once, “He took it upon himself, as the leader of the village, to care for orphaned kids, and especially Naruto, personally.”

“I didn’t get to know Kakashi until he became my jounin instructor,” Naruto took over again, looking almost apologetically at his father, “I’ve seen him around of course, but he couldn’t approach me. I didn’t know of his connection to you until quite a bit later. And I didn’t know about _my_ connection to you until I was sixteen.”

Minato was obviously startled by this enough to become speechless. Kakashi took pity on his old teacher and prepared to give the full, daunting explanation.

“Because of who exactly you were, letting people know Naruto was your son would have put him in great danger from your enemies. If people known to be connected to you, like me or Jiraiya-sama, were to approach Naruto without a proper reason behind it, that would risk exposing that he was not just a regular orphan. Sandaime actually made a rule that forbid us to get close to him because of this. I… didn’t protest it nearly enough,” he finished, unable to keep some of his self-loathing from leaking into his tone. Naruto’s reaction was immediate, as he turned to pin him down with his gaze.

“You didn’t have to…”

“I had a duty, as your father’s only remaining pupil and as a-“

“Kashi, you were _fourteen_ ,” Naruto cut him off vehemently. It took away Kakashi’s ability to respond for a moment and the younger blond used the opportunity to turn to his father to explain, “It was fine. I was fine. It wasn’t the most fun of childhoods, and it was painful more often than not with most of the villagers hating the Kyuubi within me when I hadn’t even _known_ about it. But I got through it and grew up knowing how to appreciate what I got. And I got a _lot_. I found happiness. It is not Kakashi’s fault, it _isn’t_ ,” he insisted stubbornly, stomping his foot without realizing and glaring at everyone, as if daring them to disagree. No one did. The entire Team Minato was becoming more and more subdued the more they heard about the future the two men before them had come from. Kakashi felt his younger self’s gaze drilling into him again, and although there was still disapproval in it, there was also thoughtfulness.

“It seems… like this is a long-unresolved issue between the two of you,” Minato noted, keeping his own thoughts about the situation from showing on his face, “And it seems like the future you have come from is quite painful.”

“Our personal histories aside, it was not _that_ bad,” Naruto waved it off and then winced, “Okay, so the list of things we want to fix _is_ pretty long, but as I said before, it wasn’t all that bad in the end. But that’s also… I mean, that’s what we should be talking about. The things we need to fix, the plans we need to make. Not… wallow in our personal angst.”

“I’d still like to hear more about you, however. Both of you,” Minato disagreed softly, “We all would. And Kushina… she’d want to get an opportunity to know you as well.”

“There will be time with that later, once we deal with the most pressing issues,” Kakashi said rather sternly, even if he felt sympathetic towards the other man. It had to be overwhelming, learning everything he just had. Knowing Minato, he had to now feel his own share of misplaced guilt about the son he had just met growing up orphaned. And he probably had every intention to do all he could to make up for it in place of his alternate self, given the chance.

But Naruto… yes, Naruto had always craved family. And he’ll rejoice when this Minato and Kushina will welcome him into their own, he’ll love and cherish them. But it won’t ever truly be a parent-child relationship. After all, this Naruto was nearly the same age as his father. And arguably more experienced than him.

Certainly more powerful.

This Naruto won’t take being treated like a child, even a long-lost one, and Kakashi had a feeling that it would take a while before his old teacher and his wife truly learned and accepted that.

And Kakashi himself, well… A part of him still viewed Minato as an authority. He would never lose his respect for the man, that was for sure, and there was no reason to. But he was, currently, the oldest person here. And the only one who was a Hokage, however reluctant. It was his duty to lead.

“You can’t linger with us here for too much longer. A prolonged absence will be questioned, especially once you return with a person who had been presumed to be dead,” he spoke up, flicking his eye towards Obito, who swallowed at the words, an unusually serious expression on his face, “ _Don’t_ tell anyone about us. But we’ll leave it up to you how much of the other truths you reveal, about Madara or anything else.”

“You hardly told _us_ anything much about what you know about him or what his plans had been,” his younger self pointed out gloomily, and Kakashi smiled gloatingly at him in response.

“All the easier for you to not reveal too much about it then,” he said happily, before turning a little more grim again, “While we might explain it all later when the situation is more under control, for now it is almost better if you know very little of it. And Madara’s dead now anyway,” he stated, only to freeze suspiciously when Naruto conspicuously fidgeted beside him at the words. Dread filled his heart as he twirled to stare at the younger blonde, “Naruto?” he demanded, a hint of threat in his voice. The other had the grace to blush.

“He, uh, _will_ be dead? Soon?” he corrected haltingly and flinched when this made Kakashi’s glare intensify, so he hurried to explain, “He deserves to know the truth! He has been misled without even knowing about it. He’s not completely unreasonable, if he learns about the interference with the tablet and Black Zetsu…” he quieted down, glancing at their audience briefly, before meeting Kakashi’s gaze pleadingly, “A couple of my clones are still having a bit of an ideological discussion with him, but I’m confident he’ll give up and release his remaining grip on life willingly once we’re finished.”

Kakashi had a sudden desire to groan.

“You and your habit of lecturing hopeless people into reason,” he grumbled, tiredly. Unfortunately, the remark only made the infuriating blonde grin widely.

“Hey, it works more often than not, doesn’t it?”

Kakashi sighed, giving in.

“Be it on your head then,” he said, “Have the activated White Zetsus been dealt with then, at least?”

“Yup. All gone by now,” Naruto beamed unrepentantly. The grey haired man just shook his head and turned back to face his old team.

“Right. Madara will _soon_ be dead anyway,“ he amended, ignoring the curious looks on the four faces before him, “So don’t fret over it. For now, just worry about returning and settling back in. We’ll be dealing with certain things behind the scenes and only come to Konoha once Minato-sensei becomes the Hokage. He’ll have the power to establish us some sort of identities then. Possibly of ANBU Fox and Hound under his direct command, so we can at least hang around a bit,” he suggested cheekily.

The blond man in question grimaced slightly at the idea of using his upcoming power in such a way, since it wasn’t exactly honest, but seeing no better solution he nodded.

“When is that going to happen?” Rin piped up then, and colored slightly when everyone’s attention turned to her for it, “I mean, when will Minato-sensei become the Hokage?”

“If nothing changes, then it will be after the war ends. Sandaime will be in a position where he’ll be forced to let someone else take over,” Kakashi answered.

“And when will the war end then?” came the follow-up question, and Kakashi shrugged.

“Within a month,” he revealed, “Stone has been teetering on the edge of capitulation ever since they lost Kanabi Bridge. Sand always had an interest in ending the war as soon as possible, as they can’t afford the resources, so they’ll jump on the chance for a peace treaty once Stone initiate it. The smaller nations will follow that lead, and Cloud and Mist will be easily convinced by then as well. Although of course,” he looked at Rin then, feeling a tight heaviness in his heart, “With Sanbi now having been removed from Mist and going to Konoha, the power balance is upset and there might be complications during the negotiations that were not present in the original timeline. That’s why one of the top priorities for the two of us will be going to Mist and dealing with the chaos there that will appear in the absence of Madara.”

Kakashi could see Minato itching to ask how they planned on doing that, but the man managed to restrain himself, probably remembering his words that the less they knew for now the better.

“We _will_ come to Konoha once it’s feasible, however,” he swore again then, “And we _will_ tell more.”

“After all, I have to go meet mom,” Naruto interrupted with a smile that didn’t completely reach his eyes, “Oh, and teach her and Rin-chan here how to get along with their tenants!”

“Get along? With the Bijuu?” Minato’s eyes bulged slightly at this, but Naruto just laughed.

“They’re not bad at all, once you get to know them. Kurama is just a large, prissy fur-ball, really,” he stated, and then winced, “Yes you are, now shut up or the next time we meet with the actual Shukaku I’ll make you spend a full hour in his company!” he hissed under his breath.

Minato just mouthed ‘Kurama?’ at Kakashi who shrugged an ‘Don’t get into it right now’ back at him.

“We might not make it back immediately after you take the hat, however,” Kakashi went back to the original topic, “So there are still some guidelines and explanations we will be giving you while we start making our way to Konoha.”

Given a few trips back and forth, of course, Minato could just flash them all over. But Kakashi knew the man rarely did so outside urgent situations, since there were still risks involved. Especially when flashing together with someone else.

“Wait, so you’re going back with us after all?” Obito asked then, even as he got up in a preparation to leave, gingerly trying out how his right leg worked, “I thought you said you won’t enter Konoha for now?”

“We won’t enter it, not really,” Kakashi lied easily with a curved eye-smile, “We’ll just come along for part of the way. There’s a certain laboratory near the village that we want to visit. A certain person that we have every intention to take with us.”

A certain sleaze-ball we have to assassinate, Kakashi added in his head but not out loud. That was the part that he and Naruto had decided they’d _have_ to lie about. At least for now. As much as Danzo had to be disposed of, Minato was unlikely to accept it easily. Whether assurances of its necessity came from his son and trusted student (from the future) or anyone else. Convincing the man would take longer than they had the time for.

“A person?” Obito suddenly seemed rather fascinated, “You’re actually taking someone with you?”

“Mmm,” Kakashi hummed noncommittedly, dropping his smile in favor of a determined expression  and narrowed eyes, “Let’s just say there is someone that I feel a certain amount of responsibility for.”

As far as he was concerned, and Naruto had agreed, Tenzou was one protégé of his whose future he was completely unwilling to leave up to chance. No manipulative mastermind was going to get their hands on the mokuton user this time. They’d make sure of it.

After all, Tenzou was one member of Team 7, of their _family_ , that wouldn’t have anyone there to look out for him even in this rewritten future they were setting up.

Sai… they’d have to see to later.

Kakashi got so lost in those thoughts that he didn’t immediately realize that everyone around him had suddenly quieted down (except for Naruto who, with the help of a couple clones, was packing up their camp into sealing scrolls) and were staring at him. Once he did notice, however, he blinked quizzically.

“Kakashi,” Minato started, his eyes wide, “Where is your Sharingan?”

…

Oh.

Had he really kept his left eye closed out of habit the whole time until now? Apparently. Either that, or it had just now become light enough that his old team could notice the lack of red in it.

Sighing, Kakashi turned to the one Naruto that he estimated to be the original.

“I told you it would have been less troublesome if I had stayed masked,” he whined very maturely. His blond former student rolled his eyes.

“You _are_ still masked,” he poked his tongue out and chucked Kakashi his previously-discarded flak vest to put back on, while pulling his own newest orange menace of a jacket on, “And you’ve spent so much time with Shika, you now sound like him.”

Kakashi just rolled his own eyes back and thoughtlessly shrugged the vest on.

“Is that… Is that ‘Rokudaime Hokage’ stitched on the back of that vest?” This time, it was Obito’s absolutely horrified voice that asked.

Kakashi froze. Unfortunately, there were no convenient walls around that he could ram his head against in frustration.

“That better be one of the explanations you give on the road,” his younger self demanded, leaving no space for arguments.

“It just became one, I suppose,” Kakashi gave in as he glared at Naruto who was now sniggering under his breath at his expense.

It seemed they had a long road ahead of them. And he was not just talking about the one back to Konoha.

But as his time-traveling companion joined him at his side when they prepared to set off and they shared a long look, Kakashi figured they were up to it. The two of them could tackle anything _any_ future held in store for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it, folks. The end of this fic. As I've mentioned before, I have a lot of ideas for further one-shots in the universe. I make no promises, so whether they'll actually be written or not remains to be seen. But you can try holding your fingers crossed for it :)
> 
> (Actually, one incredibly important thing/consequence of the time-traveling that I had planned for this fic ended up getting cut out without being mentioned in the final result. So I hope at least write a one-shot for that. Then again, it's an important enough thing that it might seem out of place demoted to a side-fic, so maybe I'll end up leaving it out altogether...)
> 
> Again, to everyone who commented, bookmarked, subscribed, kudoed, or even just read quietly.... THANK YOU. The feedback, the support this fic got is amazing. They give me so much motivation. Every single comment, I often read and re-read and just appreciate to no end. It makes me so happy that this fic that I started writing on my phone in the middle of a night once because it just couldn't let me sleep ended up being liked and loved by so many. I just hope that I didn't disappoint anyone and that my future Naruto fics can gather at least a fraction of this much support.
> 
> That said, I am going to get very busy for the next couple of months, so don't expect anything new very soon.  
> (Unless another fic keeps me up at night again xD)
> 
> (Comments always make my day!)


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